Ghost in the Machine
by Epic Dragon Trainer
Summary: Steampunk AU. Hiccup is a tinkerer in the quaint Norwegian town of Berk. But Berk has a strange pest, mechanical dragons which attack viciously and explode if captured. When Hiccup manages to capture one of these machinations without it exploding, he discovers something strange within it, a ghost within the machine...
1. Chapter 1

Welcome to Berk

Bang! Clang! Crash!

"God damn it, Hiccup! Again! I swear, you're going to decapitate me some day!" screamed a heavy set man, who seemed to be brandishing a complex mechanical device which, on closer inspection, turned out to be his right arm.

A young teenage boy was staring at the exploded machine through his blackened welding goggles and his leather apron covered in soot.

"It's just a minor calibration issue. Too much black powder, and a lack of safety valves. Electrics could use some safety features too. I seem to have blown a circuit," said the boy, pulling out a notebook and jotting down the notes.

"Hiccup, I told you not to mess with those new technologies. Why can't you just stick to the practical mechanical functions? It works for me, see," said the larger man, brandishing his arm again, as well as his leg which was also mechanical. Tiny ticking could be heard and tiny motions could be seen within its workings. Both the arm and the leg were beautiful clockwork, dancing within itself in perfect synchronous, almost poetic in motion.

"I've been thinking about that actually. If you use some electrics, you could probably make it simpler and more organic. You would never have to rewind it mechanically," squeaked the younger boy, bringing out his notebook before the larger man motioned for him to put it away.

"I told ya, it's weird and it doesn't work. Just stick to the techniques I told ya, and get back to work," grumbled the larger man, who swiftly started tinkering with an odd machine on the table which turned out to be a mechanical toaster which had slipped a gear.

The larger man with the mechanical limbs is Gobber, a monster of a man who happens to have extremely hands, or should I say hand, and has almost a second sense for machines. He sported a thin beard, almost like he hadn't shaved in a few days, when in reality he just could never grow it out. It was a point of considerable shame for him. His sloppy mess of brown hair hid some of the scars on his face, mostly burns from the shop. He owned the mechanist's shop and served as the town's chief mechanic.

His apprentice, the younger boy furiously scribbling in his notebook, is Hiccup. He was a particularly ingenious young man, about 16, with an incredible intuition for machines. He liked to experiment, especially with the brand new area of electrics, a technique he learned from a book he purchased from a traveling salesman.

He had been a bit out of his element before Gobber took him under his wing, floundering in a bakery trying to heft around bags of flour. Being scrawny, to say the least, he did not fit in. Being of the tinkering sort, he tried to simplify the process by building a conveyor belt, and ended up blowing himself and the bakery up, starting an event that came to be known as The Hiccup Fire, which was forever synonymous with clumsiness and irrational behavior.

Hiccup grumbled about Gobber being an insufferable claptrap and got back to work. The growl of the forge fire and the hum of the clockwork tools which littered the workbench became part of the song of the workshop. Here is where Hiccup felt home. The machines were perfect extensions of his mind, humming and whirring and bringing new life into old scraps of machinery. God only knows he could never deal with real people, which were always variable and subject to change, but machines were constant, easy to predict and easy to understand.

Halfway through his shift, Hiccup was awoken by the obnoxious klaxon of the warning siren blaring through his ear drums. Gobber gave the young man a stern look before violently yanking down the protective metal shielding over the shop windows.

See, Berk was not your ordinary town. Of course it was advanced, like most of Northern Norway in the 19th century, but Berk faced a unique problem. Technology brought good things, healing machines and conveniences, but it also brought something else, something worse. They called these things dragons.

These things were of course not biological dragons, which had never existed, but their mechanical bodies resembled the mythological shapes of the dragons which the Norse vikings feared and worshiped. They were horrible, twisted, imitations of biology, and the few actually studied specimens showed strange, devilish science. No one knew why they attacked, and were so aggressive, but one thing the people of Berk knew, they had to defend themselves.

Patrols were common, with the Corp armed with the latest guns to combat these machinations. Plasma cannons were set up around the perimeter of the town, even the area side facing the sea, since these machines could also fly. The klaxon signaled an immediate shutdown of all town activity and signaled the Corp to assemble to defend the town. Most buildings had metal grating to protect windows and all doors had sturdy locks.

Hiccup quickly went back to work on his exploded machine, tinkering with the electrics especially. Gobber looked on disapprovingly.

"I told ya, stop working on that damn device. It won't work."

"I need to prove it Gobber! You know that the dragons' attacks are only getting worse, and I need to perfect this now. If we can capture one, we could study it, and maybe even..."

"Now stop that. You know dragons can't be captured. You know about the Protocol as well as I do." said Gobber. The Protocol was the self destruct system that all dragons had in place in order to protect their study. Why and who designed these machines and the Protocol was a mystery which had yet to be solved.

"I know that Gobber, which is why I'm trying to perfect the electromagnetic pulse emitter," Hiccup said, tapping the book open on his desk space, "and if you'd _help_ me, we could get one for study."

Gobber rested his face on his palm, clearly showing his discomfort and annoyance. "Look, you're netting, EMP, capturing thing..."

"The Knock Out"

Gobber raised an eyebrow. "Whatever. It is unproven, explosive, and stupid. It. won't. work."

"It's repaired enough. I've got to test it. I'm going out," said Hiccup.

"No you're not. You're not allowed out there."

"You know who I am. I don't care, I'm going."

Hiccup grabbed the device on a wheelbarrow and dodged his disabled master and ran off into the night.

**Hey I'm back. Here's a new story I came up with in a moment of epiphany, and I know that you are waiting for the Inventor, and I will try to finish it, but I've been very busy and the story has gotten kind of lost. I will do my best, but don't expect a lot. Thanks. **


	2. Chapter 2

Capture

Hiccup ran through the streets with his contraption in the wheelbarrow, and Berk was eerily quiet. Berk, especially at that time of night, was usually a bustling example of 19th century industrialism, with people filling the streets and conversing lightly and happily with each other. Now though, not a whisper could be heard.

And then, from the depths of the night, came the call, "Hiccup, what the bloody hell are you doing?" Hiccup just kept on trucking, the call no doubt coming from the disapproving townsfolk. He could even hear the whispers of the people in the night, saying things like, "he'll probably blow himself up again", and "it's the Incident all over again", and worst of all, "maybe a dragon will get him."

Of course, no one would come outside and stop him, a combination of the fact that he wasn't well liked but mostly because they were too scared to come outside. Dragons were infamous for carrying away humans, but their main targets were mostly machine parts, which is why the machine shops were the most heavily guarded and fortified, and occasionally food, for some reason that no one had been able to understand. Dragons didn't need food, or at least none that anyone had witnessed; this was the major evidence that they were working for a master and not simply rogue machines.

Hiccup's echoing footsteps were soon masked by rapid gun fire and the sound of plasma cannons. He steered the wheelbarrow towards the sounds, scouting out a roof which he could place his device, the Knock Out, on. Damn, that really needed a better name. What could he say, he was pressed for time. He didn't even know if it would work.

His reverie was again broken by the shouts of a large man wielding a plasma cannon like a machine gun and shouting orders to other, similarly beefy men. That hulking form of a man, carrying a hundred kilo turret like it was a baby, was Stoic, the mayor of Berk. He organized the patrols and the local militia against the dragons, and he had the respect of the whole town. Well, most of their respect, with the exception of one, teeny little…

CRASH!

Hiccup swerved to avoid the burning husk of a dragon which had fallen down in his path, with Stoic looking on coolly. Hiccup managed to hide in the glare of the fire, and soon Stoic was firing manically at the next batch of dragons.

"Damn that was close," Hiccup muttered under his breath. He finally found a suitable roof to mount the device and hauled it up the back stairs. Hoisting it up, he took it out of the wheelbarrow and took out a contraption that looked like a cross between a fishnet, tesla coil, crossbow, and a bolas. It was an extremely mangled looking contraption, and it would have looked more streamlined if he had the time to finish it.

Stoic and crew had polished off most of the larger dragons by this point, and Hiccup found himself aiming the clumsy device at an empty night sky. Any dragon would do to test it, but there was one in particular that he was looking for, a dragon that no one had ever seen. A being so powerful that with one blast of its fiery breath it could take out on entire building. They called it the Night Fury.

Some small sightings of what people thought it might be had been reported, and it was reported as being jet black, with a streamlined body, and it had only been seen directly before and after it fires. He just needed to wait.

One minute became five. Five became ten. Ten became fifteen. Almost all of the dragons had been driven off or shot down, but there was one left, and it was wounded nearby. The Night Fury had been shown to be altruistic, helping its fellow dragons and not directly attacking anyone. Maybe he could get a lucky shot.

Right as he said it, a blue explosion rocked the entire town, and a sleek, black form flew up just behind the explosion. Hiccup used the sights and rapidly fired the device. A ball about 30cm wide rocketed out of the device, zooming toward the figure. In the instant before it hit the retreating shape, it expanded into a net which spread out over a rather large area, with blue arcs of electricity racing across it.

The device landed on what appeared to be the dragon's tail, and a deafening screech was heard. The dragon was now clearly visible and floundering in the air, but still flying quite fast. It arced into the air and continued its path of flight all the way into the mountains on the far side of the village, where it landed somewhere in a giant plume of fire.

"Yeah! Success-ish! It kind of worked, but I'm going to have to get it back in order to see how well it worked."

And that was when it all went horribly wrong. That last remaining dragon was now free due to the Night Fury's attack, and it was rampaging through the streets among the exploded shells of its brethren, and it stumbled against the building where Hiccup was situated. The force of the impact knocked him off of his perch and directly into the stampeding dragon's path.

Said dragon, now wingless and enraged by its recent capture, saw the nearest living thing and rushed it. That living thing happened to be Hiccup, who was about half conscious from the fall, and he stumbled backwards as fast as he could. He ran through the empty street as fast as his feeble brain could manage, but the fire spitting dragon was hot on his tail.

"Hiccup!" shouted Stoic, who saw the commotion and ran down into the stampeding dragon's path. The plasma turret glowed purple and then blew the dragon to pieces. Unfortunately, the secondary Protocol explosion blew Stoic and Hiccup back hard, where they landed against the remaining militia soldiers.

Oh, and there's one more thing you need to know.

"S-sorry…d-dad" Hiccup managed to mutter before passing out into oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

Nighmare

"Hiccup. Hiccup, son."

The voice drifted in from the darkness, a quiet but jarring noise in the silence which threatened to awaken the slumbering form of Hiccup. Barely conscious, Hiccup barely recognized the sound and simply settled back to his sleep. A pleasant dream of tinkering in the workshop, book open on his desk, replaced the darkness. And then another voice filtered into the background.

"It's not working Stoic. We'll have to wake him up some other way."

That was Gobber's voice now, a much gruffer, thicker voice than that of his father's.

"The boy needs his rest."

"He's been sleeping for three days! We need to wake him up so he doesn't go comatose. Dr. Gothi thinks he's going to sleep forever if we don't shake him out of it."

"Oh fine. Bring the voice amplifier."

"Going big I see, no gradual progression, just knock his eardrums right out. I like it."

These words barely registered, but some part of him realized that something bad was going to happen. His dream suddenly turned violent, the tranquil workshop replaced by the last few moments of his battle, if you could call it that, with the rogue dragon. He started to twitch, to toss and turn as the horrible events wove their way back through his psyche and turned his mind to panic.

Stoic didn't realize his distress at all. "Hiccup!" yelled Stoic through the voice amplifier, which was an odd looking mechanical device, about the shape of a megaphone, but much louder.

This, of course, did not help Hiccup's panic stricken brain, which returned to consciousness and proceeded to sucker punch the nearest object, his father's doughy chest. He saw red as the panic overtook him and he almost got out of the bed and ran out the door before Gobber managed to pin him down and calm him.

After Hiccup caught his breath, and then subsequently Stoic, He laid back against the headboard and sighed.

"Sorry about that. I just, I just panicked there for a second. Bad nightmare about that dragon," said Hiccup.

"Not a problem, Hiccup. Just glad to see you're okay. You don't have much strength behind that punch anyway," laughed Stoic. Although Hiccup might have spent most of his day in the workshop at the forge, he didn't do a lot of the hammering. That was left to Gobber while Hiccup did the detail work and most of the assembly.

"How long was I out?"

"Three days."

"Three days!" yelled Hiccup, who then proceeded to attempt to get out of bed, before Stoic, Gobber, and his lingering headache forced him back into it.

"And where do you think you're going?" asked Gobber, obviously amused by his eagerness to be out and about again.

"I shot down the Night Fury that night. What, I did! I saw it go down just off Raven Point, right outside the village! Let's get a search party out there to collect it, because I made sure that it wouldn't…"

"Hiccup. Stop." Said Stoic. "You know about the Protocol as well as I do. It can't be disabled, and you probably just hit an escaping Nadder. I applaud you for your efforts, but let the weapons technicians do their job, and you stay out of it. No more projects involving dragons, you got it? I don't want to bury you."

Stoic then left the room, and Hiccup was left alone with Gobber.

"Who spit in his porridge this morning?" Hiccup cracked.

"He's serious Hiccup. We were worried you might die. You were so pale, we figured you would croak on us at any minute. You had burns all up your arms and chest, although they're mostly healed now. But seriously Hiccup, stay out of it. You're not built for fighting."

Gobber then left too, and Hiccup was left alone with his thoughts again. He really had hit a Night Fury, he was sure of it! Why wouldn't they believe that he could do it? He could be a fighter if he wanted to, and he was going to track down his dragon and figure it out. He would be the one to unravel the dragons, the one that would solve the problem once and for all.

But for now, he was confined to the bed, at least for the rest of the day. Opening his journal, Hiccup started to draw again, bur the sight of that dragon's face, the mutilated, gruesome metal framework poking through, stirred some deep, primal fear inside him. The face had looked so angry, and yet so afraid, but how could that be? Surely it was a trick of the memory, since steel and gears couldn't have emotions.

Regardless, that face haunted him, even in waking, its image plastered behind his eyelids and seared into his brain. Why did they attack? They rarely took anything, and they seemed to be designed to be suicidal. Who created them and why? What did he have against them? These questions and more whirled around his head, increasing the headache, and he was forced to lie down again.

But even in his dreams again, that face followed him. It was always following him, always staring, its golden eyes burning holes deep into his soul. His mind tried to conjure up defenses against it, some way that he could have stopped it, something to take the fear away, but it kept coming.

It exploded again and again, the heat searing his flesh before restarting again. The terrified face of his father also persisted in his dreams, sending the spiral of panic deeper and deeper.

It was a vicious cycle, fear and panic, followed by brief relief in the interim, only to start over again. After so many cycles, the dragon seemed alive, as if it were seeking him out, crying out for his blood and for his death. It seemed to have anger, and a deep desire for revenge against the people that killed it.

Just a machine, just a machine. He repeated the mantra behind closed eyes, not actually believing any of it. How could this thing be nothing anything but machinery? It was just a collection of moving parts, programmed to attack him at all costs. So why did he see an emotion behind that metallic face, an almost bestial anger, not like a machine at all?

The image continued to haunt him into the night, mercifully letting him sleep, but his sleep was filled with the nightmare. It was almost worse, since the dream kept him under, constantly staring at its face.

He eventually woke up to the sunlight streaming through the window. His mind was fogged up, but his body was rested, and he was finally ready to go. He swung out of bed, testing his legs. They seemed fine, so he got up and made his way downtown to the workshop.

The streets bustled with the usual hubbub of people on their way to the market or simply greeting friends at the start of a nice day. The attack had just glossed over their lives, just another event which had happened, something that just needed some repairs and then just moving on again. Why had no one ever been haunted as he had? That one damn dragon! Why couldn't it get out of his head!

Head in his hands, he walked into the shop, picked up his apron, and surveyed the scrap on the table. While the dragons might not able to be studied, most of them were melted down or repurposed, since metal was quite valuable. So it wasn't a surprise to find things that looked like legs and wings strewn over the shop. Gobber obviously hadn't gotten around to melting them down without Hiccup.

"Oy Hiccup! You're not supposed to be out and about yet," proclaimed Gobber.

"I feel fine Gobber. You clearly couldn't keep up without me."

"Fair point. Something you might want to see though. We managed to secure the pieces of that monstrosity that blew you up. Figured you might want to melt it down yourself."

Before he could stop him, Gobber whipped out the charred and melted face of that dragon, that cursed, haunted beast.

"Monstrous Nightmare, looks like. You can tell by the elongated snout and the raised eyes. Hiccup, are you okay?"

Hiccup had his hands pressed firmly against the desk, breathing heavily. His legs wanted to run, but his brain forced him not to turn away. That face stared back at him, but without the emotion his dreams had put on it. It was nothing more than a façade, a collection of parts. It was just a part.

"Sorry Gobber. Just stubbed my toe. Hurts like hell."

Gobber just shrugged and handed the face to Hiccup. He placed it in a massive crucible and set it over the forge. He watched as it slowly reddened and then liquefied, that face disappearing. But before it went, it left one wicked grin for it to be remembered by, as if it knew the pain it was causing.

When it was reduced to a puddle, Hiccup took it off the fire, and set it down with a sigh. Hopefully the nightmare, ironic as the naming was, wouldn't return that night. He shook off the shakes and went back to work.

After work he hurriedly packed a bag with a flashlight, his notebook, a pencil, some field glasses, a water bottle, and some food. He would never be able to sleep tonight, so he might as well find that dragon. Tonight, he would find out if he would make history.


End file.
